Bethany Reilly BA (Hons) Textiles in Practice
My specialist area is print design, mainly for an interior context, especially wallpaper and soft furnishings. I gain huge inspiration for my designs from travelling, the sights, sounds and cultures but also the flora & fauna of the countries I visit are a constant source of inspiration which I interpret in my designs to tell the story of the places I have seen.
However, during the last year as travel has been curtailed I have found inspiration closer to home in the nature surrounding my home and countryside I have visited. I draw on this inspiration to produce the concept for my designs and follow this up with research into relevant directions as outlined by the briefs for each individual project.
I pay special attention to current and upcoming trends to ensure my designs are current and relevant. I really enjoy having vibrant colour palettes to explore within my designs. I will begin by exploring hand painted or digital drawings taken from topics in my research and observations. I enjoy hand drawing the initial motifs although my passion is taking these hand drawings and transforming them into digital prints.
I love to play with the designs and experiment with the digital process, embellishing the original motif by exploring different colour ways and using the same motif to create a more detailed and intricate motif. Following on from this I am then able to experiment with digital processes and hand printing processes being experimental means that I can explore with colour palette, scale and composition.
